The Thing About Birthdays
by Amielleon
Summary: On the day the roster is stolen, Gaius (randomly?) gives Henry a cupcake. Ricken has a theory: it's a Ylissean holiday just for him, or something like that. What a strange world this is.


Hastily written silly birthday fic for Henry.

* * *

When Henry stopped eating for long enough to ask Gaius why he'd just been given a cupcake, he received some mumbled explanation about how Robin had recognized Gaius's unusual talents in keeping a stock of fresh confectioneries under even the most trying circumstances, and had enlisted his aid in providing various celebratory treats to the army to raise morale. Which made sense, except that the Harvest Festival had concluded over a week ago, and Feasting Day was still a month off, and if there was some holiday they were supposed to be celebrating in between, no one seemed to be celebrating it.

Still, it was a very good cupcake, so his mouth was too busy chewing to ask too many questions, and in that time, Gaius made himself scarce, as if he'd feared being asked for seconds.

By the time the cupcake had been demolished to a thin coating of cake and frosting on his fingers, Henry turned to the crow, waiting on his shoulder for scraps, and asked, "Did you know there was a holiday today?"

The crow gave a disgruntled caw along the lines of, _If there is, it sucks. No food. Share your food?_ Henry shrugged and let her nibble at his fingers.

At that moment, as often happened for some reason or another, the camp burst into chaos.

"The roster must be retrieved!" Frederick bellowed, galloping through camp at top speed. All about him, mages gathered their books, warriors picked up their swords and axes, and everyone generally seemed to know exactly what he was talking about and why it was important.

Henry turned to the crow and said, "The roster?"

_The magic roster_, she explained.

"We have a magic roster?"

_Uh-huh. Knows everything about everyone_.

"Hunh," Henry mused, "why didn't I know about our magic roster? ... Oh well." He stroked the crow's head and told her, "You should probably go somewhere safe. It's going to get preeeetty messy around here, hahaha." She flew off, and Henry joined into the forming ranks, already setting off for a large stone building that he could've sworn wasn't there yesterday.

As he sucked the last bits of frosting off his fingers, he caught up with Ricken. "Hey! Did you know we had a magic roster?"

Ricken shook his head. "First time I've heard of it." He paused as Henry finished licking cake off his palm, and looked at him with a question in his eyes.

"Oh, Gaius gave me a cupcake," he explained.

"What? He just gave you a cupcake?"

"Yeah! Pretty weird, huh? Is today a holiday?"

"No." With a longing look, he asked, "Do you think he's still giving them out?"

"No clue! Ahaha. Well, I would've shared, but it's all gone by now." Henry spread out his newly-licked hand to demonstrate his point, and Ricken quickly muttered a _that's all right_.

"Well, Gaius must really like you. I've known Gaius for a _lot _longer, and the only time he ever shared cake with me was on my birthday," Ricken pouted, "and only because Robin told him to." Seeming to stumble upon a thought, his eyes widened with realization. "Wait, Henry. Is it your birthday?"

"Ummm. It could be?" Henry said. He was half-busy trying to figure out if this meant Gaius considered him a friend. He did say something about Robin telling him to do things.

"You don't know when your birthday is?"

"Nah, someone told me once but it never mattered so I forgot. I think I was born during the wet season, so now is about right."

"What!" Ricken said with indignation. "It matters! Your birthday's your special day of the year! When everyone celebrates your existence and stuff."

"Oh, is that what they do in Ylisse? Celebrating existence honestly isn't very Plegian—"

Ricken ignored the culture clash between them and declared, "Well, I bet the magic roster knows when your birthday is! We're going to get it back. And then we're going to check if today's your birthday. And if it is... we're celebrating!"

With that, Ricken ran into the stone building with the others, not checking to see if Henry was following him. Actually, coming to think of it, Henry realized he hadn't even received any deployment orders.

Maybe Robin didn't want him in this battle. Or maybe he'd just been forgotten. Henry quite hated it when either of those things happened. Spitefully, since he hadn't been told _not _to engage, he took out his tome and craned his neck to take a good look at the building.

"D'ya think there's another way out?" he said, before he realized that he had left his crows behind and there was no one around to talk to. Feeling vaguely lonely, he started to walk about the perimeter of the building.

Very strange place, this building. Henry figured it had a whole mountain's worth of stone. Who _built_ places like this? ... Well, stranger things have happened. Take magic rosters, for example. He didn't think anyone knew his birthday anymore, but somehow the magic roster did. It was like Libra was right and Naga (or someone else) was watching everyone do everything like a friendly voyeur. Henry didn't really like the idea. Assuming She hadn't gotten bored and looked away—which, if Naga were kind, would really explain a lot about his life—then She would've caught him doing things that he'd thought he'd gotten away with. Like stealing dates from the priests' pantry. Maybe Naga would be all right with that, since they were _Grima's_ priests, but—truthfully, the idea of a god knowing about all the times he'd peed himself or broke into tears over something stupid was just too embarrassing.

(Coming to think of it, he had no idea how Olivia could be comfortable with the idea of Naga.)

Half lost in thought, he found himself turning the corner toward the rear end of the building. An opening, large and crude, had been formed in the wall some distance away. "Hey, I was right!" he said to no one in particular, and trotted off to the opening to ambush any fleeing Risen.

Fleeing Risen, like the big guy trying to squeeze through the opening right that moment.

Oh, it was _huge_. And really strong-looking, trudging on despite half a dozen arrows stuck into its body. Henry's heart pounded giddily at the sight. He opened his tome and began to recite the chant, his eyes on the arrow lodged into its chest. The spell tore from his hand and blasted the Risen just as it pulled free of the opening. It snarled at the impact, pulling itself around to face its attacker.

The thing must've been at least five times his size. Henry grinned.

He had time to blast it with another shot, but the Risen was faster than he'd thought, and bridged the distance between them in three great footsteps before he could read another spell. It reached out at him with one heavy arm. Henry just barely backpedaled out of its reach—its arm missed him and felled a nearby tree instead. Well. Henry decided he'd rather not be struck by _that_. He cut one finger against his metal collar and hastily scrawled a stunning-curse rune with blood on the back of his hand, feeling it take easily in the Risen's vacant mind.

The Risen roared in frustration and flung its arm sloppily to one side. Still safely out of its reach, Henry opened his tome again and peppered it with blasts of dark magic.

With disappointing ease, it succumbed to his onslaught, and—groaning—sank into the ground in a mist of dust and magic, a book falling to the ground as it vanished. Henry tilted his head, just then remembering that they had actually entered this fight to retrieve some magic roster. Was the fight already over, then? Honestly, he was hoping for a little more action. It was like they weren't supposed to think of going around to the exit, and just claw their way through all the Risen in the building. Maybe Robin decided to charge in headlong to make things last, and he'd just spoiled Robin's fun.

He walked over to take the book from the ground. It looked like a scientific notebook, with "ROSTER" emblazoned on the front in gold leaf. If Miriel were a god, he thought, this is what her records would look like. Except it wasn't Miriel's, and the fact that it was unscientific seemed to promise that it would be full of salacious gossip. He flipped it open out of curiosity: _Robin / A traveler who remembers nothing prior to being found by the wayside..._

For a magic omniscient book, it was more boring than he thought it'd be.

But it did list birthdays at the bottom. He was thumbing through the pages, trying to find his entry, when Frederick charged out of the building.

"Oh, hi Frederick," he said, thumbing past Cordelia's entry while wondering how they were sorted. (So far he felt fairly disillusioned about the book. Everyone already knew about her crush on Chrom.)

"Henry," he said, "stop reading at once!" Henry looked up at him innocently. "—Ah, that is, I see you've found the roster we've been searching for. It ought to be returned to its owner immediately."

"Sure. I just wanted to check—"

"That information is _classified_," Frederick insisted, dismounting and firmly taking the book from his hands. He gave Henry a nervous smile, and tucked the book away in his satchel. "I should not have to mention that anything you may have learned should be held in the strictest confidence..."

"Like how you like starting fires?"

"Please do not mention that." Behind a reddining face, Frederick gave a toothy smile. "Ever again."

"Ahaha, gotcha. But hey, there's something I wanted to know—"

"You may submit a petition to Robin once this has been sorted out. Please have patience until then."

With that, Frederick hopped back onto his steed and galloped back into the building. Henry thought about telling him how easy it was to go around, but Frederick had disappeared with incredible speed.

He supposed it didn't matter that he still didn't know his birthday. It didn't mean much to him. It never had.

But when Ricken bounded up to him going on about how he'd heard that Henry had been the one to retrieve the roster, and he wanted to know what it said about him, and also, "Did you see when your birthday was?"

And more than anything, he didn't want to let Ricken down. "Guess it's today!" he said. Which was true. Since Robin knew, and Robin told Gaius to do something, he guessed it'd have to be today.

"Great!" Ricken said. "I've already got ideas about how we can still pull something off today..."

And Ricken spoke of gifts and funny hats and explosions all the way back to camp. What a strange world they lived in. What strange holidays birthdays were. As if there were something in this world just for him.


End file.
